Vehicle operators, such as automobile drivers, frequently tune to radio stations while traveling in order to obtain weather forecast information. Such forecasts generally cover a large geographic area, such as an entire county or a multi-county region, and can provide some indication to the vehicle operator of likely weather trouble, such as a flash flood or tornado. Because they cover such large areas, however, generalized weather forecasts may cause wasteful evasive action by drivers not realistically at risk. For example, if the National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning for an entire county, all drivers in the county may need to heed the warning, even if the flood areas make up only a small part of the county.
Similarly, if a sudden snowstorm approaches from the west, a large number of drivers may take evasive action based on a general weather forecast for cities in the path of the approaching storm. Depending on where the drivers are relative to the weather hazard, some drivers may feel the effects of the storm shortly after the warning, while others may not be in the path of the storm for 10, 20, or even 30 minutes. Providing drivers with more accurate and vehicle-specific weather forecasts could result in substantial time and energy savings. For example, if a driver is heading West and is projected to arrive at his destination within 20 minutes, it would be helpful to know that the storm will not arrive at the intended destination for another 30 minutes. Such a system would be particularly useful for fleets of commercial trucks or buses, for example, particularly since such vehicles may be more susceptible to causing injury or property damage during severe weather events (e.g., snow, ice storms, and the like).
Various position-sensitive automated vehicle systems have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,687 (“System and Method for Communicating Information Related to a Geographic Area”) describes a system for displaying the location of a vehicle to the vehicle operator, along with other information such as a weather map. However, the system cannot provide the sort of information that would permit a vehicle operator to determine whether he or she was likely to encounter a weather hazard and for how long such a hazard might last.
Another system, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,374 (“Apparatus for and Method of Controlling Vehicular Systems While Traveling”), assists a vehicle operator by automatically controlling the vehicle in response to various detected conditions and an intended travel position. One variation of the system extracts current weather information and uses the information to sound an alarm. The system, however, does not provide predicted weather information to the vehicle operator; it does not provide hazard duration information; and it does not provide weather information tailored to the particular vehicle. Consequently, the system does not solve the aforementioned problems.
Yet another system, described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,699 (“Systems and Methods for Distributing Real-Time Site Specific Weather Information”), reports weather forecasts through the use of storm profiles that are transmitted to remote units at dispersed geographic sites. The remote units are stationary, and storm profiles are transmitted to remote units based on their geographic location. The system has no application for use with moving vehicles, as it cannot receive information concerning the mobile location of such vehicles.
In addition to the above, because we live in an increasingly mobile society, individuals are more likely to get lost or disoriented in unfamiliar territory and have their safety threatened by severe weather conditions. Specifically, weather is a factor in a high percentage of transportation accidents, including commercial aviation (26.8%), general aviation (20%), boating (11.2% of accidents; 14.8% of accidents involving fatalities), automobiles (16.3%), and recreational vehicles (10%). While some of these accidents were due to operator error, others are due to the driver, pilot or operator of the vehicle traveling into an area of hazardous weather beyond his or her skill level or the capability of his or her vehicle to handle the inclement weather. Current terrestrial navigation and weather systems suffer from several deficiencies: 1) receipt of a warning depends on a user being tuned to a radio station in the affected area that actually broadcasts storm warnings (in addition, many radio stations no longer broadcast warnings outside of the immediate area in which they are located); 2) warnings, e.g., NWR tone alerts, are only broadcast once—if the user misses the warning, the user will not be notified of the impending inclement conditions; and 3) if the user is not tuned to the correct radio station at the time of the warning, the user will miss the warning.
Assuming that the user actually hears the warning, the National Weather Service issues storm warnings by county. Thus, in order for the warning to be meaningful to the user, he or she would necessarily need to be familiar with the county layout of the area. However, when traveling, few people know which county they are currently in or which county they are approaching, other than when in or around their own home county. In addition, when the National Weather Service indicates that a storm is “near Jonesburg, moving northeast at 40 mph,” it assumes a user knows the location of Jonesburg, the spatial relationship between Jonesburg and the user's location (which may be changing if the user is in motion) and is able to integrate the motion of the storm with the motion of the user to know if the user is actually threatened. However, most people are not cognizant of this information.
Previously, the meteorological science and the positioning and communications technology required to get site specific information for a given vehicle or user and the hazards it could face did not exist. However, a number of navigation products for aviation, marine and terrestrial use have recently been introduced, including TeleType World Navigator, MapTech Pocket Navigator, MapTech Outdoor Navigator, TeleType GPS Companion, Microsoft Streets & Trips, Hertz NeverLost, ControlVision AnywhereMap/AnywhereWx.
In each of these products (except AnywhereWx), the user map orientation is fixed with a moving icon representing the vehicle (automobile or boat) in motion. This approach has a number of shortcomings, including ease with which a user can still get lost, and inability to adapt to non-fixed range conditions. That is, users who cannot easily read and interpret maps may still get lost. For example, if a map is always oriented with north at the top and a right turn is indicated, to someone traveling south the turn is actually to the left (on the map). A display that rotates to keep the route of travel at the top of the display would allow turns and other maneuvers to be synchronized with the route of travel (i.e., left on the display is the direction the driver actually turns).
Fixed ranges may be appropriate when a map display is used for navigation only, but fixed ranges are not appropriate when a device is used to anticipate hazardous conditions. For example, exits on the Kansas Turnpike can be as much as 30 miles apart. A user traveling westbound at Topeka using a navigation device with a fixed-range map display set on a range of ten miles may go past the last exit and drive into a dangerous weather situation 15 miles to the west. There would be no way for the user to avoid or escape on this limited-access rural highway.
Some known aviation systems rotate a display map with the route of flight and changes in aircraft direction. However, these are relatively large units intended to be fixed inside the cockpit of an aircraft. There is one known aviation display system that is portable, AnywhereMap by Control Vision. AnywhereMap uses a GPS signal to rotate its display to conform to the direction of travel of the AnywhereMap device. The map moves underneath a fixed icon or point on the display to indicate the location of the device above the map. There is a supplement to AnywhereMap called AnywhereWx in which current radar and other weather information is added. No forecast information is available on AnywhereWx, nor does it have the capability of changing ranges or otherwise notifying a pilot or user of hazardous conditions in the travel path. There is no technology to predict when the path of hazardous weather and a moving user will intersect.
Hertz's Neverlost in-car navigation system also changes orientation as the automobile changes direction. However, there is no weather information on the Neverlost system. In addition, because the Neverlost system is designed to assist automobile renters who are generally unfamiliar with the locale in which they have rented the car, the close-up fixed map range is inappropriate for meteorological display and warning purposes.
In addition to the above limitations, known systems typically provide, at most, only location information regarding the mobile device. That is, the mobile device cannot be used to report information, other than location information, from the mobile device to a second party, e.g., another user or a central server.
The aforementioned problems indicate there is a need for the solutions provided by the present invention.